Florida Republicans can’t stop talking about Zohran Mamdani
Gov. Ron DeSantis stopped in Miami to denounce communism Friday; Donald Trump mentioned communism 10 times during an hourlong speech in downtown; and U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez talked of fleeing communism during Speaker Mike Johnson’s weekly press conference as Republicans make Miami the face of a new conservative messaging cycle.
On the heels of losses across the country during Tuesday’s elections, Republicans spent the week blasting the democratic socialist New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to voters thousands of miles away, drawing on Cold War-era messaging to convince voters that “Mamdani = future of the Democrat Party,” as DeSantis has said on social media. The governor was in town Friday as students in Miami commemorated “Victims of Communism Day,” which he designated Nov. 7 three years ago.
Miami, home to hundreds of thousands of political asylees from communist governments, has been thrust into the center of the picture in the post-Mamdani election political moment — and Florida Republicans are eager to capitalize.
“You brought me up here to talk about the shutdown, but I will stray a little bit,” Giménez, who was born in Cuba, told Johnson and reporters in D.C. Thursday morning. “I know a communist and a Marxist when I see one. They may call themselves a socialist, they may call themselves a democratic socialist, but make no mistake: Mamdani in New York, he’s a Marxist.”
Mamdani, who has centered his campaign around working people and self-identifies as a democratic socialist, said “I am not,” when NBC News asked if he was a communist. But Republicans, particularly in Florida, see a clear, decades-old and personal messaging lane.
“Democrats are so extreme that Miami will soon be the refuge for those fleeing communism in New York City,” Trump told the crowd at a business conference in Miami on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said he believes South Florida real estate prices would see an increase of up to 40% over the next year due to fleeing New Yorkers.
Florida’s lieutenant governor hopped on the bandwagon Friday, hoping to inject anti-Mamdani sentiment to boost his preferred candidate, Emilio Gonzalez, in the campaign to succeed Suarez as Miami’s mayor.
“Speaking of communism, we have a race in Miami that needs everyone’s attention,” Lt. Gov. Jay Collins wrote on social media Friday, calling candidate Eileen Higgins a “democratic socialist” in the nonpartisan race. (Higgins does not identify as a democratic socialist.)
Gonzalez told the Miami Herald he doesn’t plan on making the same allegations as Collins over his final month of campaigning ahead of the Dec. 9 runoff.
“I’m running to be the best damn mayor this city has ever seen. If somebody then wants to get partisan with me, you can rest assured I’m not going to sit on my hands, but that’s just not how I intend to run this campaign,” he said.
But he does think the messaging could help him out. He received 19% of the vote to Higgins’ 36% in Tuesday’s general election, which featured 13 candidates. “What Mr. Mamdani does and what the national Democratic Party does for him or says about him will, of course, have a bearing on what happens down here,” he said.
As for Higgins’ campaign: “It’s ridiculous and it shows that they’re just using scare tactics,” campaign manager Christian Ulvert said. “They didn’t work yesterday. They’re not going to work tomorrow because our voters know and trust our local leaders.”
The Florida-based hype against Mamdani also comes as Latino voters split away from Republicans in races across the country on Tuesday, and Miami Republicans sweat about keeping voters in the coalition that helped Trump win.
“If the GOP does not deliver, we will lose the Hispanic vote all over the country. And unfortunately, it happened last night,” Miami U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar said in a video Wednesday. “Hispanics married President Trump, they’re only dating the GOP.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis too tried to draw a contrast between the Republican Party and Mamdani during a speech on Victims of Communism Memorial Day Friday.
DeSantis’ pointed out how Mamdani quoted Eugene V. Debs, a socialist, in his victory speech Tuesday, whereas DeSantis quoted Reagan.
Speaking from inside Miami’s Freedom Tower to a room of around 250 high school students, the governor told stories about how communism has failed.
“We’ve just got to let our students understand what the harmful effects would be, because people can say these things, they can always promise these things, and then it always ends up being the same old song and dance,” DeSantis told the room.
The governor then praised Commissioner of Education Anastasios Kamoutsas for “doing a good job dropping the hammer.”
For the second year in a row, students in Miami-Dade are celebrating “Victims of communism week,” and the State Board of Education will consider new academic standards for teaching the History of Communism at its next meeting.
When the Herald asked if the speech to a room full of kids also represented the government pushing an ideology, Kamoutsas said, “If the ideology is freedom, I am okay to push that ideology.”
This story was originally published November 7, 2025 at 5:42 PM.
